


Glue

by Cheloya



Category: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-27 07:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Old, imported. Pragmatic problem solving is not necessarily kind.





	Glue

He tried it once, to see how it'd go, and once was all he needed to convince him that Fai's reaction to nicknames had been exactly what he _did not want_. The flicker of surprise had been nice, but the cooing and coy glances that had followed after had been unfortunate at best, and had reduced him to frothing, snarling incoherence again in a matter of minutes. _Not_ the effect he had been after, but then, he'd never been too good at dealing with people, and didn't expect to get the desired result on the first try.

He'd switched tactics after that, moving from '-san' straight to '-sama', and always with a straight face, _pretend it's Tomoyo-hime, pretend, pretend, pretend_ , and watching as Fai's teasing grew slowly weaker, watching as the smile on that pale face grew ever more frail and brittle as he separated them with titles, but kept his usual forms of address for the kid and the princess and the flying sweet bean bun.

Watching as the wizard opened his mouth, sometimes, as though to speak - and didn't; shut his mouth and licked his lips and kept his silence, kept his false-smile determinedly a-glow. Watching as, when speaking, he sometimes forgot the suffixes altogether, and then started tacking on '-san' in retaliation. It wasn't exactly what he'd been going for - he hadn't expected to actually _miss_ the irritating little sounds that would end his name instead of the perfectly serviceable _Kurogane_ \- but he wasn't going to complain about finally getting the respect he deserved, and stepped up his own address to '-dono' soon after.

It wasn't until Sakura came to him, hands clutched beneath her chin, jade eyes shimmering worriedly, asking him to please, please not speak to Fai-san like that any more, that he really understood just how terrible with people he really was.

* * *

The mage looked up, unstartled, when Kurogane entered his room, sword slung casually over one shoulder, as though he wasn't just about to ruin all his misplaced hard work, as though he hadn't just been played by the wobbling eyes of a tearful princess.

"Kurogane-san," he greeted, not quite cold, but cooling. His lips tried for a smile, and froze there halfway in a pained expression Kurogane was coming to realise had been getting worse, getting _worse_.

It only took one word off the tip of his tongue; one word and a deprecating grin.

"Fai."

It took one word to spark that blank, shocked expression, the grin forming of its own accord as Fai's lips curved tremulously upward, then outward and apart, a grin more helpless and _real_ than anything Kurogane had seen from him before. One word to bring pale hands up to scrub at suddenly flushed cheeks, to smother laughter both relieved and joyful.

"K-kuro... Kurogane-sa--"

And another handful or two to cement it, or bring it crashing down, one or the other, and he wasn't sure he cared.

"Pretty sure I'm willing to put up with Kuro-wan every once in a while."

Blue, blue eyes crinkled and welled saline, and a soft, soft voice murmured, "How about just... Kurogane?" Warm hands on his arm, pale lips pressed together in a trembling line just a foot away, and Kurogane wondered if maybe he wasn't so bad with people after all, if it was just most people who were bad with him.

There weren't many people who could accurately translate a low, grudging glottal sound as their cue to rest their faces on his chest, after all.


End file.
